Initial thought: is my family safe? Txts confirmed they were. Power is off. Not good. We stayed in bed til daybreak, as the aftershocks continued to shake our house. Next thought: Are we damaged? Not too much, scattered trinkets off shelves and a collapsed shelf in the pantry smashing glasses. How is Wellington and Nelson (areas of high seismicity). Listened to radio in car; found surprisingly that epicentre was about 30km from our home on what turned out to be an unknown fault line. Next thought. How are our other properties, given radio reports of considerable damage? Sinking feeling in stomach.

Rustled up camping gear and "boiled the billy" indoors. Sat tight, talked to family and friends. Wondered if we should use the toilet? Aftershocks continued plus the house constantly vibrating.

Power on at 1100hrs, TV images graphic. Drove Into town (no traffic lights working) and shocked by damage. Office mainly OK but subsequently affected by water ingress from next floor. Much broken glass in building and some cracks which will need assessment.

Retreat in shock to home; discuss status of friends properties. Drive to our other property but it's OK - a tranquil oasis.

Sunday the enormity of it all starts dawning. Drive to look at another damaged property in Avonside. Shock. Retreat to home, which is not shaking as much. De-stress with bike ride then hunker down at home. The cat has returned and from here it almost feels normal.

Please have a positive week. Thanks to friends overseas for their kind wishes and all the best to local MMers who may not have got off as lightly as us. Today planning to follow though on plans to fly to Dunedin for meetings.

"Athletes need to enjoy their training. They don't enjoy going down to the track with a coach making them do repetitions until they're exhausted. From enjoyment comes the will to win"

"the container shipping market was positively affected by stronger activity in global trade. Freight rates and volumes for the Group's container shipping activities have been surprisingly positive, up 31% and 11% respectively on the same period of 2009"

At the Group level, Maersk lifted EBITDA (cash profit) margin from 18.6% of Sales to 28.4%.

- Emanuel Derman, quantitative analyst, author and Director of the Financial Engineering program at Colombia University

- Sir Ken Robinson, (1950- ) UK author, educator, thinker and critic of highly structured education systems

By way of reflection, 2009 was challenging, especially in the first 6 months. However there were (as usual) many positives and the usual customer analysis of Key Business Partners in the past year follows:p>

- we worked for 15 customers (to each, a hearty thank you)

- of the 15, 5 provided 80% of revenue

- 4 of the 14 were new customers

- 5 out of 15 were new customers spanning food manufacturing/exporting (Canterbury), investment (West Coast), logistics (Chch), minerals processing (Colorado) and wholesaling (West Coast)

We look forward to being of service in 2010..best wishes for a successful year in every way